


uncloaked

by winter_travels



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Genderfluid Alyss Mainwaring, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Other, Trans Will Treaty, meditation on dysphoria but with a good ending, my new hobby is queering ranger's apprentice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29681937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_travels/pseuds/winter_travels
Summary: Will comes home without his cloak. Alyss listens.
Relationships: Alyss Mainwaring/Will Treaty
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	uncloaked

**Author's Note:**

> based on a tweet from Chats with the Void @ChatsVoid (tw animals/bones in their art) that had a beautiful quote: "my body is me, but i am not my body."
> 
> my partner and i talk a lot about queer representation in ranger's apprentice and our various headcanons. here's a small piece; my interpretation of a trans will and his dysphoria.

The shadows lay soft on the ground as Will stepped into the small cabin, thoughtlessly pulling upwards on the door so that its creak was softer. A solitary candle in the window had told him Alyss was home, but as per usual - and here his lips quirked upwards - they had fallen asleep at their desk, papers piled high. Despite their unwrinkled clothes and calm demeanor, their desk always looked as if a storm had swept in the windows with several libraries worth of paper on the wind. Ebony moved into the room, investigating Alyss’s knee carefully.

“Leave them, girl,” Will said. He moved about the cabin, shedding his boots, drawing the curtains most of the way, and warming some leftover soup. He couldn’t settle yet. Ebony curled up in front of the fire, and Will spent a long moment crouching next to her on the rug, burying his cold fingers in her fur and rocking back and forth. It was spring, but spring came slowly to Redmont.

He became aware of eyes watching him, and though nothing perceivable changed in his body language, he patted Ebony a few final times and turned. “Hello, Alyss,” he said gently, and reached out a hand. “Who are you tonight?” The question was well-worn, familiar and loved.

“I’m them, outside of he or she,” Alyss replied. Their fingers entwined with his.

He always loved Alyss’s grey eyes in the firelight. They shone with intelligence, determination, and compassion – but were lined, and tight around the corners. He made himself smile wider than he felt, just to watch them crinkle as Alyss smiled back.

Will served dinner, faster than he meant to, nearly spilling the soup. More times than usual, he checked over his shoulder and out the front window. Alyss switched seats to their small dining table, watching him. 

“How was your patrol?” Alyss asked. Their voice was smooth, though delicately questioning.

Will took a few deep breaths before answering, bouncing his knee below the table as he made himself be cheerful and enjoy the meal. He related the various things that had happened on the patrol, from Ebony’s standoff with a particularly brave rabbit to a crime duo that almost, almost, made off with a small fortune of dye that was being delivered to the castle. His flying hands almost upset his soup bowl as he reenacted the dramatic final chase, but Alyss smiled and then laughed, and the sound lit up the cabin. Something eased in the line of their shoulders. Will felt a warm glow of pride.

The two finished supper, set something down for Ebony, and moved back to the fireside. Wind hummed at the window, setting the canvas covering flapping and the flames hissing. Will moved across and closed the shutters, though no rain was forecasted for that night. He heard Tug moving around in the lean-to behind the cabin, felt his throat close up suddenly at the sound.

The wood of the window frame was cool and sanded beneath his forehead. He meant only to rest for a moment, but then that stretched into far too long.

“You’re crying,” Alyss said quietly.

Will started, running his fingers beneath his eyes. “No, it’s the cold weather. Makes your eyes run, everyone knows that.”

“Tell me,” they replied instead. They hadn’t moved from the chair, he could hear that. He cursed the reflexes that made him react with a knife instead of a jump to an unexpected touch.

The fire crackled: he could feel the warmth on his back and the way the smell filtered in through his mouth like heated words unspoken. Silence stretched on, and though he tried to form the words inside his mouth, roll them around on his tongue like the carefully pondered gifts that came from Alyss’s soft lips, nothing emerged except frustrated air. His body felt heavy, sinking into the wall of the cabin.

He shouted. Wordless, angry. With the fluidity and strength of years of knowing where every part of himself was at all times, he struck forward with a clenched fist, stopping a centimeter away from the wood.

Alyss didn’t cry out behind him. He was infinitely grateful.

“They took my cloak,” Will could finally say. He couldn’t turn around or meet their grey eyes, but he wanted desperately to tell them. A thudding came from within him, aching and terrible.

“Oh, Will.”

“It was drying after a rain. They distracted me - probably didn’t even recognize a Ranger with the cloak muddy and discolored – and took it. Insulted me. They could see…all of me. I wasn’t,” and here his voice broke without his letting it, “I wasn’t ready for company.” He found his arms had wrapped around his chest and his back curved down against prying eyes.

It was a familiar position from childhood. Never straighten up, never let anyone see how different, how _trapped_ he was. Always move in the night, in the shadows. He hated its return.

His Ranger cloak had been an escape from all of that. Will could slip inside it, let it fold around him and conceal his shape, and stand as straight and proud as he wanted. Halt had never commented, but Will suspected he’d had a word with the tailors and made them cut it to be roomier than a normal cloak.

Alyss stood, the chair scraping against the wood floor. Ebony lifted her head, but Alyss soothed her with a soft word and made their way across the room with deliberate steps. They stood to Will’s side, a tall warm presence.

“I’m so sorry,” they whispered.

He fell against them, feeling them wrap their arms around him. He couldn’t unbend, not yet. Not without telling the whole story.

“All of them…they saw me. Reminded me of Horace’s acquaintances from Battle School,” he said with a humorless laugh. “They decided to treat me like... Didn’t like how I was….” He couldn’t finish the sentence. "One of them asked me where my dress was. Complimented me like I _wanted_ that. Like I was playing at being...."

Alyss rubbed a hand along his back.

A few shuddering breaths later, Will whispered, “I taught them a lesson, but it didn’t seem to matter. No one has known the truth for so long. All my hard work is for nothing.”

His partner leaned back, one hand on his cheek. “Your body is not the truth, Will. _You_ are the truth. And you being yourself will _never_ be for nothing.”

Will couldn’t stop the tears that cascaded again down his cheeks. “What if they tell everyone? What if I get my oakleaf revoked? Or I’m banished for lying to the king?”

“We will not let that happen,” Alyss whispered fiercely. They pressed their lips to the top of his head, holding him so tightly that he felt the determination in every line of their body. “Nobody will think less of you, even if they do happen to find out. And we will make sure to discredit those _foul_ people thoroughly, so that no one will believe a word of what they say.”

The two listened to the snapping fire and the whispering wind outside, the sounds mingling in a playful duet. Ebony breathed a deep dog-sigh of contentment. The cabin was home, just for him and Alyss, Ebony and Tug. Will didn’t have to be afraid here – he _refused_ to be afraid here.

Will’s sigh was so close to Ebony’s that Alyss smiled into their love’s hair. Gradually, he straightened in their arms until he could wrap his own around them. The couple began to sway in place, both thinking of long-ago music at a crashed wedding.

Alyss broke the peaceful silence first. “I love you, my handsome Will.”

He looked up at them with the first genuine smile of the evening. “I love you too, Alyss.” His brown eyes danced with mischief, and he seized them up and twirled them around, just to show himself he could. 

Alyss laughed and kissed him. There was a spare cloak in the bedroom. He felt like Will again.


End file.
